I stood beside her as she read. I had my hands on her desk and was watching the way her glasses had slipped to the end of her nose. I didn’t move when her hand slid up my thigh under my skirt.

“Oh,” she said absently, “this is good, very good.”

I had no idea if she was referring to the text or to the state of my cunt as her finger stroked lightly between my lips.

~~~

Paula has been a good friend for many years. During most of those years, she was in a long-term relationship with Megan but it all came to a rather sticky end when Megan decided she wanted children. Paula, like me, had no maternal instincts whatsoever and the tensions between them eventually boiled over when Megan brought home a gay man and a turkey baster.

Apparently, she said to Paula, “Jamie here is going to give me his sperm. You have two choices, help me or go.”

My then-girlfriend, Olivia and I (my name is Catherine) found Paula in tears on our doorstep with a suitcase and nowhere to go. We took her in, gave her a bed and she stayed for a month until she could sort herself out, poor cow. Between you and me, I’d never liked Megan but I’d tolerated her for Paula’s sake.

“Are you sorry she’s gone?” Olivia asked me as I poured her a glass of wine after I’d helped Paula move. I had a sense at that moment that something was coming. “You never seemed to take your eyes off her.”

“I was looking after her and, no, I’m glad she’s gone so we can be alone again.”

“Right.” Whenever Olivia said ‘right’ like that it meant something was wrong so I asked what it was. “I said right,” she replied.

“I know you did but we both know it isn’t. She’s a friend who needed help, we gave it.”

“You gave it.”
 

“Liv, please don’t do this. You know I love you, please don’t …..”
 

Then she kicked off and I knew. “Please don’t what? Please don’t realise you wanted her, that you wanted me to go and her to stay. You were all over her.” I moved close to her to hold her but, to my horror and immense shock, she slapped my face really, really hard. “Don’t come to me like that.”

She was shouting now as I fell back, holding my stinging cheek and crying. She had often slapped my arse, even used a flogger a few times in a playful, stingy way but that was an assault. I crawled away from her, backwards, on my heels and hands, never turning my back on her, scared, ashamed, hurt. I had no idea where this was coming from but it was real, hurtful and totally unwarranted.

I got up and ran upstairs to the bedroom, dragged a suitcase out from under the bed and filled it with anything I could lay my hands on. I packed my work rucksack with laptop and papers.

She came to my office door. “Cath, I’m so, so sorry.” I didn’t say a word. “I am, Cath, truly. I know…”
 

I was angry now, angrier than I had ever been. As is often the case, the angrier I am the quieter I become. In barely a whisper, I said, “Leave me alone.” Olivia knew the signs and it was her turn to look as though she’d been slapped. I left and went home to my now widowed dad. I cried and cried and he was just dad, looked after me, never judged, there for me as he’d always been.

~~~

So there I was, single again. A few months later the tenant left the flat that I’d rented out when I’d moved in with Olivia and, needless to say, my time was occupied in cleaning it, painting, mending. The tenant hadn’t been bad but people don’t look after rented properties as owner-occupiers do and I enjoyed the physical work, the catharsis.

I had financial independence, thanks to a wealthy and loving grandmother, which meant I didn’t have to work so I could indulge my attempts at writing for the theatre and I fitted this in between painting rooms, refurbishing the flat, tidying my secluded garden. I barely wore a skirt for six months and was somehow sorry when it was all done. I threw away clothes ruined with paint, torn by saws and screwdrivers and indulged myself shopping for a new wardrobe, my ‘after Livi’ wardrobe. And fuck her. My maxim was if I saw something I knew she’d love me in, I bought it. And fuck her.

Oh, God, she’d have loved those shoes. Hand over the credit card and fuck her. That dress, jeez, exactly her thing, fuck her.

During all this time I saw Paula occasionally but she was withdrawn and guilty (she knew Livi blamed her for our split). She could barely say anything but ‘sorry’ and I didn’t want her feeling guilty because what had really happened had been because Livi didn’t, hadn’t loved me.

“Can you come round to my office?” Glenys Williams was a literary agent and editor and she’d agreed, thanks largely to her acquaintance with my dad, bless him, to read some of my stuff. With no real expectation of anything coming of it, I’d gone. I didn’t make a lot of effort dress-wise. Why would I when I was going to be told, good but not good enough and did I really care anyway?

My dress was linen, cream and blue stripes (my best friend Sam called it my deckchair dress) but it was summer and the city was hot. My sandals were the Egyptian sort that didn’t do much for my calves but I could walk in them, so what the hell. My chestnut hair was tied loosely back.

“There’s a small theatre company in Bristol. They are mostly young, aspiring and, frankly, rich kids indulging themselves. They’ve all been to drama school, all have some experience but, well, they are like most actors mostly unemployed. So they’ve formed “Dole Queue’ which is a small company doing staple comedy and thrillers in pubs and village halls. They have, though, a really good director called Vanessa Staunton. She’s done some serious stuff but she likes these kids and decided that now she’s loaded she can give a bit back.”

Glenys had poured me a huge glass of Pimms when I arrived, “Well, it is so fucking hot, isn’t it?” I held the cold glass and was barely aware how hard I had begun to grip it when I realised there might be something going on here.

“Put the glass down before you break it, Catherine. Pimms would ruin that frock of yours.” I took a draught and placed it on the low table between us. Glenys was wearing a long, loose dress in black and her hair, also black and long, seemed to become a part of it, a sort of shawl at her shoulders. She smiled. "Vanessa wants you to write something for her to do with ‘Dole Queue.’ Go and talk to her."

So I drove to Bristol and wished I taken the train because parking is a nightmare. I made an effort this time and carried a small leather rucksack with some of my work in it. I arrived at the small rehearsal rooms late, sweaty and dishevelled. Great start. I needn’t have worried.

Vanessa was tall, slim and as scruffy as fuck. Her short, grey hair was a mess. She had paint smears on her jeans and more on her white t-shirt. Her tits were loose beneath the shirt and was that the faint outline of a pierced nipple?

She talked as she worked, moving bits of scenery, tidying up texts, checking lights, stacking chairs. I offered to help but she waved a vague hand and told me to sit. The upshot was that she’d liked my stuff but it wasn’t exactly right for her company. “Some really good stuff there, Charlotte.”

“Catherine.”

‘Right. Some really very good stuff but this lot need something lighter, simpler, less dense and so do their audiences.” She fished into a scruffy leather briefcase and yanked out a dog-eared copy of a play I’d written, a murder story called ‘Stabbed in the Heart.’ “I like this a lot but I want you to re-write it, more humour. You do humour well. More tension at the end of the first act so the audience wants to get back to their seats to see what happens. More pace in the second act. With me?” I nodded and I don’t think I’d said more than a few words since I had arrived. Vanessa was a dynamo.

“Good. Can you do it?” I nodded again. “Good. We start rehearsals at the end of August so I want to see it mid-July. Can you do that, Charlotte?”

“Catherine. Yes, I can.” But I was thinking three weeks was never going to be enough.

“Catherine? Really? I was sure Glenys said Charlotte. Pity, I always fancy women called Charlotte.” She had a wicked smile.

“Okay, Charlotte then.” She did that smile again and kissed my cheek as I left.

~~~

Vanessa’s house was a large, rambling Victorian pile on the edge of the city with a long, gravel drive that curved between unkempt flower beds and a large expanse of what had probably been lawn. The doorway was set back in a porch of impressive proportions, flanked with two vast pillars and two slightly smaller lions that looked particularly fierce.

Vanessa Staunton opened the door after a few moments and I was surprised. She was tidy: clean white silk blouse and a long, wide skirt that was a cascade of gold and blue to her ankles. Her feet were bare, her hair brushed and shiny and her eyes sparkling. She kissed me.

“Welcome, Charlotte, come on in.” Was it an accident that the back of her hand brushed across my nipple through my thin cotton dress. I knew it wasn’t when it did it again and she smiled. “Not going to correct me this time?”

“If you like Charlotte, so do I.” Nice teeth when she smiled. She kissed me again, a little deeper this time. Her hand wandered delightfully over my breast and I was about to yield to the kiss properly when she broke away and walked quickly down the bright hallway until she came to a wooden door.

“Come on, darling. I’ve got bubbles here. I’ve read it but I want to go over a couple of bits of it again. Pour us a drink while I do that will you? Loosen your hair too, it’ll suit you better.” I took the elastic from my hair and shook it loose, not quite sure why I did as she directed but then, she’s the director I thought.

I poured as she sat, opened the text and put a pair of wire-framed glasses on. I placed the champagne (good stuff, I recognised) beside her and was a little surprised but not, I admit, disappointed, when her hand rested on my hip as she read. That hand slipped a little lower and I stood there like a schoolgirl while her teacher reads her essay.

I stood beside her as she read. I had my hands on her desk and was watching the way her glasses had slipped to the end of her nose. I didn’t move when her hand slid up my thigh under my skirt.

“Oh,” she said absently, “this is good, very good.”

I had no idea if she was referring to the text or to the state of my cunt as her finger stroked lightly between my lips having strolled up the loose leg of the silk French knickers I was wearing.

She stabbed her finger at a line on the page in front of her. “This needs tightening, working but it is good.” Another stab. “And this is dreadful. Cut that out, it’s crap.” This time the stab was gentle and with the other hand as she curled a finger into me. She turned to look at me and smiled. “Work gets me horny. You do too, as it happens. All okay with that are we?”

By way of answer, I placed my hand on her shoulder and leant down to kiss her cheek. She smelt of lemons, her hair was soft when I ran a finger through it.

“Right,” she said, standing. “Let’s get our first fuck out of the way then I’ll be able to concentrate better. Come with me.” Normally I’d have been appalled but I wasn’t. I was excited, delighted, eager.

Her bedroom was on the first floor, up a wide, curving staircase, lined with pictures of stage companies, flowers, ancestors too, perhaps. The first door on the landing led into a bedroom and it was light, in pastel shades with a huge bed, some chests and chairs and a vast arrangement of flowers set in front of a high, wide window overlooking the driveway.

Her arms around me, she kissed me harder, deeper, invading my mouth with her tongue and her hands wandering to find the zip at the back of my dress. My naked breasts were soon exposed and she bent to kiss them both. “Love small tits,” she muttered as she leant back to look at them before pushing my dress down and kissing me again, even harder. She tasted good.

Her hands left me as she undid her blouse and liberated what turned out to be large but firm breasts that belied her age (forty-nine, I later learned). Her nipples were dark and hard, pierced with small rings and pressed against me as she kissed me again. I let my hand slide over her breast, palming the nipple and she gave a little encouraging moan into my mouth. Her hands explored my body as mine did hers, her back, her neck. I traced her nipples with my nails and her finger found my cunt again inside my knickers and curled up into me as her tongue curled deep into my mouth.

There was no time for her to undress further it seemed. She led me to her bed, climbed aboard and lay back, her legs wide and her skirt pulled up. She was naked beneath and I needed no guidance. I wanted her, to taste her, to satisfy her desire and feed my own. I knelt between her spread legs and bent down to her trimmed mound, my hands caressing her thighs as my tongue began to slide over her wet, lips.

They were large, not neat like mine, and I pulled them between my lips and let my finger slither into her as hers had into me. I licked, kissed, probed with my tongue as my fingers did the main bit and I thought she was about to cum but she was just rearranging us. I was astride her right leg, my right thigh where my mouth had been seconds before and we ground together as we kissed and fondled until she let go and with a sort of keening noise she became taut, her head went back and she started to quiver until it came pouring out of her in a rush. What is about me that when a lover cums, I do too? I did.

~~~

The final rehearsal before the technical and dress rehearsals was in mid-September. I sat next to Vanessa as the cast did a creditable job with the script.

It was the beginning of Act Two and all of a sudden Van, as they all seemed to call her, shouted, “Stop. Weren’t you,” she looked at me over her glasses, “supposed to change that line?”

“God, yes, sorry.”

She looked up at the stage. “Change that line in your scripts. It seems our wordsmith can't be bothered. Carry on.”

Then came the bit where the murder weapon was discovered by the new woman who had replaced the murderer’s victim. It was supposed to be in a chest under some family memorabilia she was examining, but it wasn’t there.

“Where the fuck is the gun?” She was shouting now. “Who is doing props?” A rather pretty woman who was playing a minor part put her hand up sheepishly. “For fuck’s sake, where is it?”

“I’m so sorry, I’ll get it.”

“Stay right where you are. Are you going to do that on the first night? ‘Oh, sorry, I’ll pop and get the murder weapon I ought to have put in the chest. Silly me. Talk quietly amongst yourselves as I get it.’ What the fuck is the matter with you? Carry on.”

I was humiliated, the actress was humiliated and the cast were embarrassed for both of us and Vanessa carried on as if nothing had happened.

After, I was having a sneaky cigarette (about five a year and usually when drunk) to calm my nerves and the pretty actress stopped beside me. “I’m Faye, Faye Millerton. Don’t take it to heart, she’s a pro and gets like that. It’s tension more than anger. She’ll be fine.”

“Fuck her.”

“Good idea.” And I watched as her nice arse swayed as she wandered off. That was the first time I’d spoken to Faye.

Vanessa came out of the dressing room and put her arm across my shoulders. I shrugged her off. “Look here,” she said, turning to me to face her. “This, for them and for me, is not a game. If we lack discipline we lack professionalism and if we lack that people won't pay to come and see them and critics will say they are incompetent as well as us. They love this. They need to be told, to be shouted at and to learn to fucking well get it right. So do you. Get over it. Coming?”

I said no, I wasn’t coming and I walked to the station and took a train home and got quietly pissed on my own with a few glasses of gin. She was right, of course. I knew that but Christ, I felt like I had when Livi had slapped my face.

I apologised the following morning but she reacted as if nothing had happened. That afternoon we were back at the rehearsal room and everything went well. After, I was waiting for her, but Faye Millerton came out of the dressing room first.

“Not smoking tonight?”

I smiled. “She seems to have become human again.”

“She is absolutely brilliant. We forgive her anything. She’s done so much for us. So have you.” To my surprise, she kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”

Vanessa’s voice came from behind me. “Watch her, Charlotte. She’s a gay as a drag act and she’ll have your knickers off before you can say, ‘Prompt.’”

Faye shrugged and looked at her over my shoulder, her hand still holding mine although I hadn’t noticed her take it in the first place. “Just giving her a bit of moral support, Van. She’s not used to the fact you’re a psychopath.” She looked at me. “I thought you were Catherine, no?” I shrugged. “Oh, okay, one of Van’s idiosyncrasies. Gotcha. Night both.”

As she walked away I felt Vanessa’s hand on my back. I turned and she kissed me, hard. “It went well, very well. You’re good. I’m going to introduce you to a friend.”

“Have you fucked Faye?”

“Not yet.” She grinned and we went back to her house where she did to me what she hadn’t yet done to Faye. She didn’t take me upstairs. As soon as the front door was closed she leant against a wall, nearly knocking a small clock of it and pushed me down to my knees as she lifted her long skirt and pulled my face to her. Where, I asked myself, were her panties? No matter, I got to work with tongue and lips and soon, very quickly, she was moaning and then gloriously cumming, wetting my face and gripping my hair.

“Lovely. Want a drink or shall we go to bed?” No contest.